Various surgical procedures are routinely carried out intravascularly or intraluminally. For example, in the treatment of vascular disease, such as arteriosclerosis, it is a common practice to access the vessel and insert an instrument (e.g., a balloon or other type of catheter) to carry out a procedure within the vessel. Such procedures usually involve the percutaneous puncture of the vessel so that an insertion sheath can be placed in the vessel and thereafter instruments (e.g., catheters) can pass through the sheath and to an operative position within the vessel. Intravascular and intraluminal procedures unavoidably present the problem of stopping the bleeding at the percutaneous puncture after the procedure has been completed and after the instruments (and any insertion sheaths used therewith) have been removed. Bleeding from puncture sites, particularly in the case of femoral arterial punctures, is typically stopped by utilizing vascular closure devices.
A procedure for closing a puncture may require a plurality of operational steps that are performed by several vascular closure devices. One objective in such a procedure is to limit the number of devices inserted into the patient. Integrating functionality of several vascular closure devices into a single device poses a number of challenges.